The seizure of the Eritrea-flagged tanker Sibu 1 is not an isolated maritime incident. It is another piece of evidence in a longer story: strategic cooperation between the Eritrean dictator and Iran
By Habtom Ghebrezghiabher
Sibu 1 was operating in the maritime corridor between Yemen and Somalia when it was seized by Somali pirates. The Eritrea-flagged tanker had previously been identified as part of Iran’s shadow-fleet network, moving Iranian petroleum products through the international maritime system.
The significance is not simply that an Eritrean-flagged ship was hijacked. The significance is that an Eritrea-flagged vessel connected to Iran was operating in precisely the maritime theatre where Iran, the Houthis, and Al-Shabaab armed networks intersect.
The Eritrean dictator-Iran relationship did not begin with the tanker. They have maintained political and diplomatic ties for decades. The relationship has repeatedly deepened around a shared hostility toward Western influence and a common language of resistance. Iranian officials have openly described the two countries as having a convergence of political positions.
Iran saw the Eritrean dictator’s opposition to the United States and his support for al-Shabaab as a strategic opportunity. In 2006, Eritrea supported the Islamist forces in Somalia. Iran and Eritrea found common ground in Yemen. In May 2008, Isaias Afwerki travelled to Iran, and their strategic cooperation deepened: support for the Houthis, weakening the U.S.-aligned government in Yemen, and reshaping the balance of power on the southern side of the Red Sea.
The objective was clear: strengthen the Houthis, weaken a U.S.-aligned government, and create a hostile power controlling the Yemeni side of the Bab el-Mandeb. Eritrea controlled the African side. Iran provided the strategic and military backing.
Together, they helped turn the Red Sea into a new front against the United States, Israel and their regional partners. This history matters because the cooperation did not begin with the current Houthi attacks. It goes back more than a decade.
In 2007, the Eritrean dictator became the first non-Arab, non-Muslim leader to openly support Iran’s nuclear program through his foreign minister. That was not a minor diplomatic gesture. It revealed where Asmara stood: alongside Tehran against the U.S.-led order.
The relationship became strategically important in the Red Sea. Since 2016, the Iranian intelligence-linked Saviz used the waters around Eritrea’s Dahlak Archipelago as a forward platform for Iran’s Red Sea operations against Israel and the U.S. In April 2021, Israel responded by striking the vessel. Yet Eritrea’s anger was directed at Israel—not at Iran for using Eritrean waters as a platform for its regional operations.
Their relationship only deepened and strengthened. In July 2024, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh travelled to Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Iranian officials publicly emphasized the convergence of Iranian and Eritrean political positions.
The Eritrean dictator has also remained conspicuously silent as the Houthis have attacked commercial shipping connected to Israel and the West in and around the Red Sea following Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023 attack against Israel. More than a third of the ships attacked by the Houthis were attacked in or near Eritrea’s sovereign waters.
The silence is striking. The dictator never stops talking about Eritrean sovereignty in response to Ethiopia’s provocative rhetoric. But when the Houthis violate Eritrean sovereignty and threaten ships in Eritrea’s maritime space, there is silence. No outrage. No condemnation. No demand for the Houthis to stop. They are ideological allies.
Today, it is not America the target, it is Israel. Israel occupies an exceptional place in the Eritrean dictator’s foreign policy. Israel is treated not merely as another external actor but as part of the regional order that Afwerki believes he must resist.
Asmara has refused to accept an Israeli ambassador’s credentials since 2020 and has strongly opposed Israel’s observer status at the African Union. Eritrea’s hostility toward Israel is not primarily bilateral; it is geopolitical.
Israel’s role in the Middle East, its position in the African Union, its relationships with Ethiopia and Somaliland, and its engagement in the Red Sea are increasingly viewed in Asmara as interconnected elements of a wider strategic project.
Afwerki’s July 2025 interview provides unusually direct evidence of this perception. Discussing developments across Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Somaliland, he stated:
“The ultimate aim seems to create a conducive environment for Israeli control in the region.”
This is critical because Afwerki was not discussing a bilateral Eritrea-Israel dispute. He was discussing Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia, Somaliland, and the Red Sea and interpreting them as interconnected elements of a broader regional transformation.
Israel therefore appears in Afwerki’s worldview not simply as a state with which Eritrea has poor relations, but as a perceived beneficiary—and potentially a central driver—of regional restructuring.
Therefore, the weakening of Iran is a strategic blow to the Eritrean dictator. The dictator is willing to assist Iran in any possible way, including the use of Eritrean-flagged ships for smuggling oil and weapons.
The assistance is not limited to Red Sea smuggling. Iran is arming the Islamists within the SAF in Sudan, while the Eritrean dictator has become an important strategic and logistical space in the Sudan and for training. So the cooperation is ideological.
The use of Eritrea-flagged tanker Sibu 1 is not an isolated maritime incident. It is another piece of evidence in a much longer story: the strategic cooperation between the Eritrean dictator and Iran. These are not isolated dots on a map.
Iran’s shadow-fleet system does not require every vessel to fly an Iranian flag. Foreign-flagged vessels can provide another layer between the Iranian origin of cargo and the final destination.
The Eritrean dictator’s worldview makes this cooperation even less surprising. He has consistently portrayed the international order through the language of Western domination and resistance. Iran fits naturally into that worldview. Israel, by contrast, is increasingly portrayed by Asmara as part of the Western strategic order.
The Eritrean dictator does not see Iran as simply another foreign government. He sees Iran as part of the broader resistance to Western power.
That helps explain why cooperation with Tehran can coexist with hostility toward Israel. It also explains why the presence of Iranian military and intelligence assets around Eritrea was tolerated for years.
The Sibu 1 seizure therefore should not be viewed as a strange coincidence. It is another piece of a pattern that has been developing for years.
Diplomatic alignment. Iranian military presence in Eritrean waters. Close political ties. Eritrean silence toward the Houthi campaign. Iranian-linked networks reaching Sudan. And now an Eritrea-flagged vessel operating inside Iran’s shadow-fleet ecosystem.
The Eritrean dictator can deny the connection. He can say that a ship flying the Eritrean flag has nothing to do with the Eritrean state.
But the larger question is not whether Asmara owns one particular tanker. It does not. Eritrea, after three decades of independence, has no functioning aircraft and shipcraft.
The question is why Eritrea repeatedly occupies strategic space inside Iran’s expanding Red Sea network. The answer is increasingly difficult to miss.
The Eritrean dictator and Iran share share a strategic worldview—and the Sibu 1 is the latest evidence of growing cooperation between the dictator and Iran’s ayatollahs.
